Real estate listing data through ListHub
ListHub is the largest syndicator of real estate listings in the U.S., and is announcing today that by September, they will fully implement the newly released Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS) Syndication Standard, which is a nationally recognized syndication schema developed by Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) RETS Syndication workgroup.
What all of these letters refer to is a standard for real estate listing data information exchanges, which has been developed and refined over many years to make a common schema that allows content owners (brokers, MLSs) to interoperate more efficiently with publishers and data distribution platforms. RESO’s RETS Syndication workgroup has 63 members, including several members of the ListHub Product Team: Workgroup Vice Chair James Martin, Senior Engineer for ListHub, Mark Wise, VP of Product and Operations for ListHub, and Engineer Andrew Matheny.
The publisher community sees the new RETS Syndication Standard as progress for the industry. Jason Doyle, vice president of Homes.com said, “We are looking forward to ListHub making the transition to the new RETS Syndication Schema. This evolution represents a movement toward better listing content for our consumer audience, as well as the opportunity to better serve the MLSs and Brokers who advertise on our site.”
Fastest way to implement RETS is through ListHub
ListHub syndicates more than 2.4 million listings each day to more than 125 publisher websites, which represents one of the largest initiatives to implement the new standard and is a major driver of adoption of the standard.
ListHub said in a statement that the most recent version of the RETS Syndication Spec includes an increase in the number of marketing fields that are mapped in the RETS format. By adding additional marketing fields, brokers and agents are able to better advertise their properties for sale with more detail and accuracy, and consumers will have access to richer information online.
Several additional fields that have been added include: Lead Email, Alternate List Price, Price Frequency, Provider Category (The type of entity that authorized the listing to be included in the syndication data feed), and Listing Disclaimer (The disclaimer string for a specific listing).
“The evolution of the RETS syndication spec directly benefits content owners and publishers,” said Luke Glass, Vice President and general Manager of ListHub. “Brokers and agents want their listings to be represented online with the richest information possible, and publishers are eager to provide rich information to consumers. We are excited about the opportunity to accelerate adoption of the new spec by implementing it within our own organization.”
